Various types of air-conditioning apparatuses, allowing a use-side heat exchanger such as an indoor heat exchanger to function as an evaporator and capable of performing at least cooling operation, have been proposed conventionally. As such a conventional air-conditioning apparatus, a multiple-chamber air-conditioning apparatus including a plurality of indoor heat exchangers connected in parallel is also proposed (see Patent Literature 1), for example. The multiple-chamber air-conditioning apparatus has an expansion valve corresponding to each of the indoor heat exchangers. In more detail, a refrigerant pipe, connecting an outdoor heat exchanger and indoor heat exchangers, is configured such that the indoor heat exchanger side thereof is branched into a plurality of branch pipes, and that the indoor heat exchangers are connected to the respective branch pipes whereby the indoor heat exchangers are connected in parallel. Further, an expansion valve is provided to each of the branch pipes, corresponding to one of the indoor heat exchangers.
In a conventional multiple-chamber air-conditioning apparatus configured as describe above, an air conditioning load placed on each indoor heat exchanger differs. This means that in a conventional multiple-chamber air-conditioning apparatus, the flow amount of refrigerant flowing inside must be different for each indoor heat exchanger. As such, in the conventional multiple-chamber air-conditioning apparatus, in the cooling operation when an indoor heat exchanger serves as an evaporator, the opening degree of each expansion valve provided corresponding to one of the indoor heat exchangers is controlled such that a degree of superheat of the refrigerant flowing through each indoor heat exchanger falls within a prescribed range.